January's Gold Winner for Poetry.
In a hovel at the end of town,
lived a man of unkempt demeanor.
Unclean and unshaven,
he would walk repeatedly,
the same streets every day.
As for appearance, some would say
he was more a beast than a man,
more a creature of the wild,
one who provided amusement,
who drew laughter from a crowd;
a receptacle of abuse,
as if he had no mind,
nor a heart that one could touch.
His name was Joseph,
but he was known as Joe,
Joe, the village idiot,
or simply Joe the Bum.
It did not matter what it was,
for it was really all the same.
Everyone knew that Joe was useless,
a fool without a brain;
a leach who lived on handouts,
living as vermin live,
in the dirt of a filthy hovel,
like a beast without a human soul.
Many would not touch his body,
or stand too close to him,
fearing that they would soil themselves,
or contract some terrible disease.
Many felt a seething hatred,
and many wished he were dead,
for in this clean and perfect town,
with its clean and lovely people,
he was nothing but a blemish,
and an embarrassment to all.
He was all of this and very much more,
at least that’s what many thought,
the many who disdained him,
hating him for what he stood for.
This is the way it was,
until one beautiful day,
while some were looking
and laughing in his face,
that he leaped in front of a bus,
to save a child who was frozen,
unable to move from its path.
Pushing her to safety,
his body then was crushed,
and thus was ended the life,
of a man without a soul,
a man more animal than human,
a filthy, useless bum,
an embarrassment to all;
a blemish to be shunned.
